Land use with heterogeneous land quality: An application of an area base model

Area base models are being used in resource assessments to project the availability of farm and forest land. In this paper we introduce a heterogenous land area base model and apply it to a five-state region in the southeastern United States. Land quality turns out to be an important determinant of land use, suggesting that existing homogeneous land area base models may have an omitted variable problem. Parameter estimates are obtained using a modified multinomial logit model, which allows for error due to the use of county averages and error resulting from the use of sample estimates of land use acreage.